Dubai: The growth in data due to the robust increase in smart devices will continue to pose a major challenge for the healthcare industry, industry experts said.
“The proliferation of smart devices coupled with the wearable devices will continue to grow at an enormous pace in the years to come,” Dr Deepak Kaura, Chief Radiology Officer of Sidra Medical and Research Centre at Qatar, said in a keynote speech at the Dubai Health Authority CIO (Chief Information Officer) Forum held in Dubai on Thursday.
He said the future of healthcare IT is rapidly evolving and trying to keep pace with the evolution of information, in the way we consume information and the way information is created.
Wearable devices like Google Glass, sports, fitness, heart rate and activity monitors will increasingly be augmented by connectivity to the emerging number of smartwatches and glasses devices that become available over the next five years.
Kaura said that more than 100,000 healthcare apps are available on Apple store now.
Long-term storage solutions
“Demand for long-term storage solutions of large amount of data will grow in the future and the need to manage complex IT landscape and large amount of data will challenge the healthcare system,” said Dasha Deckworth, director of global managed services at Atos.
She said one 3D CT scan consumes 1GB of storage capacity. In 2013, growth in healthcare data stood at 500 petabytes and will grow to 25,000 petabytes in 2020.
It is better for healthcare firms to “share the information in the cloud and share the storage expenses” by placing it on a data centre.
“The key benefits of data centres are transfer of risk, cost saving, saving valuable time, technology knowhow, capacity management and access to expertise,” she said.
Kaura said the healthcare and cloud spend in 2011 was just over $1 billion and this figure will grow over $7 billion in 2018.
